The Catalan police investigate 900 profiles related to jihadism on the net

The interim Minister of the Interior, Jordi Jané, has said that the Catalan police, the ‘Mossos d’Esquadra’, are currently carrying out investigations in Catalonia in relation to jihadism and that nine hundred profiles on the social networks are being investigated. ‘Terrorism knows no bounds’, he said. The Catalan government will therefore double the controls on the roads ‘to detect any possible movements of terrorists’.

Jané also announced a protocol to ‘detect Islamist radicalisation phenomena in time’ in the classrooms which has already been designed and will now be implemented. Next week the minister will be meeting with the Department of Education to agree on a protocol to be implemented by the educational community to know whether a pupil might be becoming radicalised. Jané also announced that the controls will be doubled on the communication routes, and especially on the large road accesses to the cities and in the streets. The minister reminded that the Jihadist threat is ‘serious’ and reiterated ‘the hand held out to everyone to help’ in the fight against terrorism, but also encouraged the citizens to ‘lead a normal life’.

Catalonia on level 4 alert

The head of the Department of the Interior reminded that alert level 4 has been in place since 7 January, when it was raised after the attack on Charlie Hebdo. He stressed that “prevention and vigilance is maximum” and insisted that level 4 is associated with the phrase “there is very likely to be a terrorist attack”. Level 5, “is almost certain”. The minister insisted that the alert level was not changed after the Paris attacks on Friday night, but that the controls have been stepped up and all of the units of the Catalan police force have been activated in case any action might be needed.